Poet in Residence

In 2015 we welcomed our first Poet in Residence, Abegail Morley. Abegail took inspiration from the people, events, and nature of the Gardens, bringing a fresh enjoyment to everyone who visits and loves Riverhill. Abegail is based in Kent, and has been published internationally.

Abegail’s Poetry Residence began with a Haiku Challenge on 21st March 2015, coinciding with World Poetry Day. Through the year she was a regular visitor to Riverhill, absorbing the atmosphere and watching how the gardens & its visitors change with the seasons. Her monthly poems were published on the Riverhill website, Facebook page and Twitter feed, for everyone to enjoy. Find out more about Abegail's books and appearances at the bottom of this page.

How to walk in the garden
March 2015

Here’s the key to the garden; stiff gate eases
with a gentle shove, sun-bleached frame hangs −
a parched lower lip. Dip your head to pass.

Squander your touch on swags of ivy, be the wind,
sift sky for its clutter of starlings, hurtle sycamore
seeds like spinning-tops. Trace paths that creep

but I hear his voice when I turn to watch
the buzzard’s flight. My hands startle

the buckled trunk, feel how it sculpts the tree,
scrapes my palms, gently, as if it knows not

to cause pain. I count the whorls in bark, stem my desire
to measure its two hundred rings. Fragility tucks itself

into our own histories – the sun touches us –
we’re scant children whispering to each other through time.

September's poem:

Brooms Field

It’s just the way the upper field
strains rain like an upheld hand,
how it holds the music of raindrops
carves them into bark that make me
think I hear you in the wind’s call.

You bring daisies, meadowsweet,
red campion and something torn
from the middle of you. In return
I give you the yellow-green rub
of lichen from my fingers, the twist
of my heart in rings of oak,
and the listlessness of summer lets me
sing to you from the dusty hedgerow.

October's poem:

The Wood Garden

Daylight: I marvel at its simplicity –
the way it stretches limbs, spindle legs
shooting out like sudden gun shots,
how it wears the same clothes
so differently each morning.

That first dawn it must have scarred
the earth, etched its thumb in ragstone,
dragged its fingers through grass and soil.
Now it bathes the wound it cleaved
with a curator’s silent hand.

Midday: leaves drift in mesmeric
circles. I net fingers over my eyes,
take snapshots of Weald sky, woods,
sense absent people hover just out of reach
as if they’re tending beds or paths.

I could sit here all afternoon on the tilt
and slip of the hillside, exist on only
the formation of exiting autumn birds,
red-coloured bark, the weave of ants,
their constant mud-rubbing abdomens.